Through Time under Jedi Apprentice
by Jedi Padawan
Summary: AU. Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Tahl, and Bant confront figures from the past. Same as Through Time under Star Wars. If you review and include enough info for me to find your story (ie, title, id#, author, category, rating . . .) I will review that story (No R ra


BecJedi, thanks for the suggestion and the review. The prequel's coming - I should have the first chapter up by the 1st Sunday in April (I'm not sure what the date is exactly).  
  
I found this story sitting in my computer. It's a couple of years old, from when I went through a phase in which I hated vowels, so excuse the names. If you haven't read the Jedi Apprentice books, it won't make much sense, and it'll spoil the first few (1-The Death of Hope, I think). Also, it's AU  
  
I don't own Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Tahl, or Bant (. I wish I did, but I don't  
  
Obi-Wan Kenobi circled warily, his lightsaber burning through the pitch blackness that covered everything about the room. Everything seemed normal, even if it did seem to be a little offsetting. Something wasn't right, but what was it?  
  
All of a sudden he knew. Obi-Wan twisted to avoid the blast from the unseen enemy, swinging the laser sword around to parry the attack. His saber sliced through flesh and bone, and the sickening gasp from behind told him that the swing had been a score. Triumphantly he grinned, thinking that he had defeated the threat to the Temple's safety. He raised his lightsaber to gaze upon his victim and see who the being really was.  
  
"NOOOOOOOOO!" the scream tore at his heart and pierced his lungs so that he could no longer breathe. Instead of the vengeful eyes of a malicious attacker, the dead face of his friend Bant stared back at him, shocked and twisted in pain.  
  
Obi-Wan sat up in bed, sweat dripping down his face. He gasped for breath and fought to regain his composure. The nightmares had been tormenting him now for three weeks; nightly terrors that were leaving him deprived of sleep and short tempered, qualities which were especially dangerous in a Jedi. He rose from the sleep couch to rinse off his face.  
  
The light in the next room over, his Master's room, was on as well. Ordinarily Qui-Gon Jinn slept without waking in a peaceful state of meditation. The light worried Obi-Wan. Something terrible must be happening for Qui-Gon to be awake at this late hour.  
  
"Come in, Padawan." Qui-Gon's voice was uneven and weak. "I need to speak with you on a very important matter."  
  
"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan entered the room. "What is it?"  
  
"How long will it take you to pack? We need to leave immediately."  
  
"Why?" Obi-Wan was confused. It couldn't be a mission. There was always advance warning of at least a day, to allow Jedi to gather information about their destination.  
  
"That is not important now. Pack lightly, we must leave as quickly as possible." The older Jedi's face looked haggard, as though torn by an inner torment. He was already dressed, with his lightsaber hanging from his belt.  
  
"Yes, Master." Obi-Wan knew better than to argue. Instead, he returned to his room and pulled on the loose fitting robes of the Jedi. Within minutes, he returned to the door of the apartment. Qui-Gon was waiting by the exit, and impatiently gestured to Obi-Wan to follow him.  
  
Although Obi-Wan had the advantage of youth, Qui-Gon was walking so swiftly that it was difficult for Obi-Wan to keep up. Qui-Gon lead the way through the passages of the Temple's housing apartments to the hangar. A ship was ready, its engines already fired up. "Climb aboard," Qui-Gon said brusquely. Obi-Wan obeyed him hastily.  
  
They boarded and entered a passenger cabin with four seats. Bant and her Master Tahl were already seated. Qui-Gon called to the pilot, "We're aboard." Before Obi-Wan could sit, the ship had leapt off the bay and into space.  
  
Obi-Wan was thrown against the seat, pressed back with the awesome force of their takeoff. Bant looked over at him and giggled. Obi-Wan smiled weakly back at her and tried to get more securely restrained. Seeing Bant called the dream back, as vivid as if it had really happened. He shivered in an effort to shake the dream off, but was left feeling chilled. The world started spinning around him, and his breath came in short gasps that could not fill his lungs. Sweat seeped through his tunic in a dark puddle and his skin became clammy.  
  
"Are you all right, Padawan?" Qui-Gon asked his apprentice.  
  
"Yes, Master. I will be fine." Obi-Wan took a few deep breaths and tried to calm his anxiety. "Will you tell me what we are doing now?"  
  
"You should learn patience, Obi-Wan." Qui-Gon reprimanded him gently. "We just received news that T'handra Mag has returned."  
  
"Who is T'handra Mag?" Obi-Wan questioned. The name seemed slightly familiar, as though he should recognize it, but he could not recall where he had heard it before.  
  
Qui-Gon looked away. "She was my first apprentice, many years ago. She really did not need the apprenticeship; in some areas of patience and wisdom she was by far my superior. But the Council felt that it was necessary for her to feel normal, so I took her as my Padawan Learner. At that time, she was friends with another young Padawan called Rhiz Brnac. They were almost more than friends. She spent every spare moment with Rhiz, discussing matters of the Force and its uses in everyday life. T'handra was very strong in the Force. She would always leave messages for Rhiz that required knowledge of the Force and their friendship to decode, and I feel that the constant challenge to discover what the messages were helped Rhiz to develop as a Jedi."  
  
"The Council felt otherwise," Qui-Gon continued. "They saw T'handra as a distraction that didn't allow Rhiz his full potential, and that she herself was being damaged. Without a doubt, she could have become a challenge to Master Yoda. But the Council decided that she should have some distance from Rhiz to fully realize the Force. So they sent Rhiz and his Master K'loran to a distant star system, the Nvork III world. It was a dangerous mission, and the chances for failure were great. But K'loran couldn't refuse the Council, so they went on the mission."  
  
"In theory it should have been easy, but K'loran and Rhiz ran into trouble. A bounty hunter was waiting on the planet surface for them. The two Jedi combined were not nearly a match for the power of this one. She controlled them completely, using a form of hypnosis not entirely understood even today. The Jedi never stood a chance against her. They died hardly a day into their mission."  
  
"The Council had meant to distance T'handra and Rhiz, not to commit murder. They were not the ones to hire the bounty hunter. But T'handra couldn't listen to reason. She never trusted anyone again. You see, she was more than Rhiz's friend, more than his love. They were bonded so tightly that Rhiz's death affected T'handra. She spent a year in a coma, on the verge of death. The healers were not sure she would survive, but she pulled out of it. Everything seemed to be fine, but the night before she was to take the trials, she-"At this Qui-Gon's voice broke. He stopped speaking and stared at the wall of the ship.  
  
"She killed herself," Tahl finished for him.  
  
"And now she's back," Obi-Wan said.  
  
"And she presumably doesn't want to be a Jedi anymore," Bant added. "If she thinks that the Council arranged the murder of her soul-mate, she is probably angry."  
  
"Which means that she would be a dark Jedi," Obi-Wan finished.  
  
Qui-Gon nodded. "T'handra was extremely powerful. The idea of her as a dark Jedi . . . We may not be able to stop her. She is definitely better than I am."  
  
"So we are supposed to try to turn her back, then? Or do we assume that she is just a rumor and that we are going to verify it?" Obi-Wan asked.  
  
"We are to take things as they come, but leaving matters alone would almost definitely lead to disaster. Obi-Wan, Bant, I want you to be extremely careful. Do not go anywhere without our permission. If T'handra really is alive, and she is angry with the Jedi, then she will be very dangerous." Tahl said. "Now, it's a long flight to the Kryx system, so let's sleep."  
  
Obi-Wan awoke much later with a sore neck. He twisted his head to straighten the sore into a less painful alignment. The ship had apparently landed, because nobody was in the sleep cabin. He made his way to the front of the ship, thinking to find his companions at their morning chores.  
  
Nobody was there. The ship was completely deserted. Obi-Wan looked around for a note of some kind, telling him where to go. He felt uneasy, as if something were wrong. There was no note. Frustrated, he opened the doors of the ship. When he left the cockpit, he realized what was wrong. There was no pilot.  
  
Obi-Wan began to worry. If the pilot was gone, then something serious must have been going on. He began to wonder if he should leave the ship in search of his Master.  
  
Before the thought could be fully comprehended, an explosion rocked the ship. Obi-Wan was thrown against the wall, crashing into it and collapsing. Metal girders and beams tumbled around him, denting the floor. More explosions were blasting the ship from all sides now, and he was tossed around more and more violently with each blast. Finally, the shocks abated. Obi-Wan was lying dazed on the floor, staring at the control panel. A blinking timer was ticking, counting down. 30 . . . 29 . . . 28 . . . Obi-Wan stared at it bemused as precious seconds ticked by. The sudden shock of the timer's meaning jolted him into reality, and he dove out of the open doors as the bomb exploded, destroying the ship.  
  
Obi-Wan lay dazed in the dust and the dirt of the planet's surface. He could breathe the dry air, but Bant would need a humidity mask. That shouldn't be a problem, he reassured himself. She knows to carry it with her.  
  
The strange surroundings puzzled Obi-Wan. He stared around, wondering what to do. He was disobeying his Master's orders, but surely Qui-Gon would understand in these circumstances.  
  
Before Obi-Wan could figure out what to do, he was swept aside by powerful arms. Qui-Gon pulled him under a ledge, dragging him out of view. "I thought you were already out here!" Qui-Gon exclaimed. "You came out when we evacuated-"  
  
"It wasn't me, Master. I woke up when the explosions started." Obi- Wan was still shocked by the traumatic awakening of that morning. "It must have been an imposter."  
  
"That wouldn't be impossible," Qui-Gon commented. "There's been an increase in the amount of terrorism against Jedi Knights since the T'handra sightings began. I think we can determine that she is still alive, and that she is malicious."  
  
"Master, where is the imposter who was pretending to be me?" A horrible thought had just struck Obi-Wan. The imposter would have been able to set the bomb to blow up the ship, and the person who would do that would be . . .  
  
Qui-Gon had the same thought. He took off at a run, not needing to say anything more. Obi-Wan knew where they were going. His friend was in danger. He didn't need directions.  
  
They rounded the corner and came upon Tahl and Bant, both of whom looked extremely surprised. They glanced at Obi-Wan's blackened face and singed hair, realization dawning on them just as the fake Obi-Wan appeared with a bucket of water. Not waiting for the fake to attack, Qui-Gon swept down with his lightsaber, slicing the imposter neatly in half.  
  
There was a crackle and fizzle of burnt electrical circuits and wiring. "Droid," Qui-Gon said sharply, his lips pinched tightly together.  
  
Obi-Wan's sense of danger was still on full alert. Something still wasn't right. It was too simple, sending a droid. Yet it was the smart move for any attacker wary of being discovered. There was something more to the situation than he could see. Something elusive . . .  
  
Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber at the same moment the speeder came down on them. The rider caught everyone off guard, sweeping skillfully at Obi- Wan's head. He ducked and rolled through the dirt, blowing a gigantic cloud of dust into his attacker.  
  
The battle was under full force. Bant's humidity mask fogged with her heavy breath as she struggled under the impact of each blow by the attacker. Obi-Wan could see that she wouldn't last much longer without help, and he rushed back into the fray. The mask was so fogged that Bant's face was no longer visible. Panicked, Obi-Wan thrust himself in front of the next attack, giving Bant a chance to recover. Qui-Gon and Tahl were trying to turn the attacker away from the young Padawans, but the attacker could not be swayed. He parried their attacks, but always turned back. Briefly Obi-Wan thought that this must be T'handra, because of the skill of each thrust and parry.  
  
A muffled gagging from behind him made Obi-Wan turn. The twilight on the planet was over, and it was now pitch black. His attacker could no longer be seen, but there were two lightsabers glowing now from the direction the attacks were coming from. All Obi-Wan could think was that the attacker had a friend, maybe Rhiz back as well, come to protect T'handra. But then one of the sabers disappeared, and Obi-Wan felt a chill run down his spine. Something wasn't right, but what was it?  
  
All of a sudden he knew. Obi-Wan twisted to avoid the blast from the unseen enemy, swinging the laser sword around to parry the attack. His saber sliced through flesh and bone, and the sickening gasp from behind told him that the swing had been a score. Triumphantly he grinned, thinking that he had defeated the threat to the Temple's safety. He raised his lightsaber to gaze upon his victim and see who the being really was.  
  
"NOOOOOOOOO!" the scream tore at his heart and pierced his lungs so that he could no longer breathe. Instead of the vengeful eyes of a malicious attacker, the dead face of his friend Bant stared back at him, shocked and twisted in pain.  
  
Qui-Gon and Tahl were still engaging the original attacker, but Obi- Wan could not join them. His grief was overwhelming, and the surge in the Force of Bant's death paralyzed him. Tears sprung to his eyes, falling on her broken body.  
  
Then a strange apparition came before the battle. A ghostly figure dressed in white stood in between the Jedi and their attacker. "T'handra!" Qui-Gon gasped, staring at her.  
  
"It is I, Master," T'handra looked back at Qui-Gon sadly. "May the Force be with you," she said softly, almost inaudibly. Then she turned to the attacker. "Rhiz, it is time to go now. The Council neither killed you nor me, and you have no quarrel with them. Come with me." She took their attacker's hand and led him away.  
  
The older Jedi rushed to Obi-Wan and Bant. Qui-Gon put a hand on Obi- Wan's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said as Tahl cradled Bant's body. "You did what she would have wanted. I'm sure of that. The mask must have been poisoned to control her. I know that she is happier now than she would have been as a slave to Rhiz. Come, we need to find a ship to go back to Coruscant."  
  
Tahl gathered Bant's body and stood. "We should go," she said, her composure faltering.  
  
Qui-Gon lifted Obi-Wan to his feet. Obi-Wan walked slowly, tears running down his face. Suddenly, he broke free of Qui-Gon's hold and ran back to where the ship had been. Standing where he had cut her down was the ghostly image of T'handra, accompanied by a new figure. Bant waved back at him, smiling and whispering to the wind, "Thank you, Obi-Wan."  
  
Sorry again about the names! You can say them however you want to, and if you figure it out, go ahead and tell me. I don't have the foggiest clue how I intended to say them.  
  
Please review! 


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